THIRTY years ago, at a meeting of the parliamentary Liberal Party Keven Cairns asked a question of then Prime Minister John Gorton.
Gorton was under pressure from his own party and from an increas� ingly confident Labor Party. Gorton was facing a no-confidence motion as a result of his secretiveness and dis� loyal treatment of potential leader and young bull Malcolm Fraser, who was then Defence Minister.
Even though the Calition had a majority there was no guarantee that it would survive because a critical number of Liberal Party MPs were fed up with Gorton’s leadership.
Cairns’s question was: what would Gorton do if he lost — call an election or resign as Liberal leader and Prime Minister and ask the Governor-General to get the new Liberal leader to form a government?
The difference was crucial, Cairns explained, because he had a large family and no resources. If Gorton opted for a general election, Cairns, sitting in a marginal seat, would be out of Parliament and without an income within six weeks.
Cairns’s practical concern is no doubt, it is engaging in the minds of many Coalition MPs right to now. Such MPs want to give themselves the best chance of winning, and a critical part of that is the leadership.
At present, the general view is that John Howard will lead the Liberal Party into the next election, six or seven months away. But the fact an election is so close is no guarantee of a leader’s immunity from challenge on the principle of not changing horses in midstream. In 1971 everyone thought Gorton would lead the Liberals to the next election, even if to defeat.
Since the advent of opinion polls, a looming election appears to focus attention on leadership. In the first 70 years of federation the party-room coup was a rarity. In the past 30 years it has become commonplace. There have been six successful ones and almost as many unsuccessful ones, starting with Gorton’s demise 30 years ago. And many have been quite close to election time.
After Gorton lost to Billy McMahon, Billy Snedden lost to Macolm Fraser nine months before the 1975 election; Bill Hayden lost to Bob Hawke one month before the 1983 election, John Howard lost to Andrew Peacock 21 months before the 1987 election, Peacock lost to Howard 11 months before the 1990 election, and Hawke and lost to Paul Keating 15 months before the 1993 election.
There are quite a few parallels between 1971 and 2001: the leader (Gorton or Howard) accused of secretiveness and been out of touch with the electorate; the young bull (Fraser or Peter Costello) having earlier been a keen supporter of the leader but becoming disillusioned and feeling he could do better; the old ball using cunning to undermine the position of the young bull.
In 1971, Gorton undermined Fraser by failing to deny before publication a story by Alan Ramsey then of the Australian that Gorton would back the Army in any ding-dong over Fraser’s assertion that the Army was flouting Defence policy over civil aid in Vietnam. Fraser saw this as disloyalty.
In 2001, it has been suggested that Prime Minister Howard has similarly undermined Costello by not revealing to him for more than two months details of an unfavourable memo from the president of the party, Shane Stone, in the aftermath of the Queensland election.
Both incidents the reveal a leader who failed to share knowledge with a Cabinet colleague who had future claims to the leadership. On both occasions the leader was heading a party towards electoral defeat.
A similar situation pertained with Hawke and Keating: a leader as a King Lear figure wanting to be loved by all, saying that he will relinquish leadership responsibility, but all along the really wanting to retain it; the challenger (Fraser, Keating, or Costello) as a Hamlet figure agonising over whether to challenge or not to challenge.
But there is a big difference in 2001 — not the precariousness of the leader or the electoral position of his party, but rather the position of the potential challenger — the extent of his impetuousness, princple or determination. Fraser had the courage to resign over what he saw as his leader’s disloyalty. Keating had the guts to lay all line when a few thought he had any chance of winning at the 1993 election.
Maybe Costello decided to play a longer term game. Or maybe people should be asking whether he has he got the ticker. This has been Costello’s second opportunity to seize the leadership and each time he has done nothing – most recently leaving the Kevin Cairns’s of his party to stare unemployment in the face.